This application relates to a closure for gas humidification bottles, or any other desired container in which an inner closure may be aseptically sealed prior to use, and then may be opened by simple rotation of an outer screw closure.
Gas humidifiers are used in conjunction with oxygen gas therapy to patients. Oxygen gas emerging from an oxygen tank has an extremely low humidity. Accordingly, for the comfort and well-being of the patient, the oxygen gas is generally bubbled through water prior to being administered to the patient.
Conventional glass humidifcation canisters must be washed in between uses, and can break. Furthermore, they become a source of bacterial contamination over long use, especially when they have not been adequately washed.
For this reason, disposable plastic humidification containers having aseptic contents have enjoyed considerable commercial success.
One such disposable humidifer is disclosed in Pekkarinen U.S. patent application Ser. No. 558,601, filed Mar. 14, 1975 now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 4,011,288. In this patent application, a screw top closed container is provided with an inner sealing partition, and an outer partition carrying a pair of spikes. A threaded nut member drives the outer partitions toward the inner partition so that the spikes pass through respective tubular sleeves to rupture diaphragms for opening a gas inlet line to the container and a humidified gas outlet path.
The invention of this application provides considerable simplification of the structure necessary to permit opening of an inner partition of a closure by rotation of an outer, threaded member.
The invention of this application eliminates the need for the parallel advancement of a pair of spikes to puncture a pair of membranes as in the patent cited above, and also eliminates the need for a multiple start thread advancement. Also, the parts of this invention do not need to be carefully oriented during assembly, as in the prior art.
Likewise, the device of this invention greatly reduces or eliminates the "spitting" problem of drops of liquid water entering the humidified gas outlet line. Such is, or course, most undesirable when the outlet line leads directly to the breathing apparatus of a patient being administered oxygen.